Soccer Features

Real Madrid champions again thanks to fighting spirit

May 5, 2008, 0:44 GMT

Madrid - Real Madrid are known and admired the world over for their elegant, attacking, aesthetic brand of football. Over the years, though, their fighting spirit has been just as important a factor in their success. This was never more true than during Sunday's victory to complete the team's 31st Spanish league championship - and their first back- to-back titles since 1990 - owing much more to that fighting spirit than to elegant and aesthetic football. The proof came as Bernd Schuster's resilient team came from behind to win 2-1 at Osasuna, not with slick, attacking football but through old-fashioned defiance and character. The whites had to play all the second half with 10 men after Fabio Cannavaro was sent off. They went a goal down with just eight minutes left, then were reduced to nine when Gabriel Heinze limped off. Instead of giving up, Real - as ever in their 106-year history - battled on to turn the game around, and dramatically so, with late goals from Arjen Robben and Gonzalo Higuain. 'We have proved all season,' said a delighted Heinze, 'that we are a team of battlers, a team that never gives up.' This fighting spirit was cheered and praised in the all-night celebrations in Madrid's Plaza de Cibeles that followed the defiant win in Pamplona. Even so, this team will not go down as one of the best in the club's history - far from it. It is a team largely put together by Fabio Capello last season, a team constructed in the defiant and belligerent image of the Italian. Capello realized the need to quickly rebuild a mean machine - to end Real's trophy-less 'Galactico' chaos of 2003-07 - and duly did so, though without winning many admirers in the Estadio Bernabeu. Indeed, he was unceremoniously sacked at season's end, and Schuster was brought in from Getafe to give the team a little more dash and elegance. The dour German has largely failed to do that, though Wesley Sneijder has given the midfield a little more gloss, and Arjen Robben has livened up a dull attack. Schuster will not share the same fate as Capello. Instead, he will be given another season to bring back the sparkle - and to get beyond the round of 16 in the Champions League, Real's stumbling block since 2004. In March, however, Schuster was against the ropes, when AS Roma beat his troubled team twice and Liga pursuers Barcelona managed to reduce the gap at the top to just two points. Luckily for Schuster, Barca then collapsed, leaving Real to coast to the title. The taciturn German will be under more pressure next season and will learn - if he hasn't learned already - one of the eternal truths of Spanish football: that winning is often not enough. What the 'madridista' fans are demanding more than anything else is a new megastar, a new idol to pick up where Zinedine Zidane left off two years ago. Club president Ramon Calderon is well aware of his team's lack of star quality and is desperate to bring in either Kaka, Cristiano Ronaldo or Cesc Fabregas.

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